Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire (2004)
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83% of critics liked it
(18 reviews) -
89% of users liked it
(176 ratings)
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party has used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social… More Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire examines how a radical fringe of the Republican Party has used the trauma of the 9/11 terror attacks to advance a pre-existing agenda to radically transform American foreign policy while rolling back civil liberties and social programs at home. The documentary places the Bush Administration's false justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neoconservatives to dramatically increase military spending in the wake of the Cold War, and to expand American power globally by means of military force. At the same time, the documentary argues that the Bush Administration has sold this radical and controversial plan for aggressive American military intervention by deliberately manipulating intelligence, political imagery, and the fears of the American people after 9/11.Narrated by Julian Bond, Hijacking Catastrophe features interviews with more than twenty prominent political observers, including Pentagon whistleblower Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who witnessed first-hand how the Bush Administration set up a sophisticated propaganda operation to link the anxieties generated by 9/11 to a pre-existing foreign policy agenda that included a preemptive war on Iraq.At its core, the film places the deceptions of the Bush Administration within the larger frame of questions seldom posed in the mainstream: What, exactly, is the agenda that drove the administration's pre-war deceptions? How is 9/11 being used to sell this agenda? And what are the stakes for America, Americans, and the world if this agenda succeeds in being fully implemented during a second Bush term?FEATURING INTERVIEWS WITH:Tariq Ali | Benjamin Barber | Medea Benjamin | Noam Chomsky | Kevin DanaherMark Danner | Shadia Drury | Michael Dyson | Daniel Ellsberg | Michael FrantiStan Goff | William Hartung | Robert Jensen | Chalmers Johnson | Jackson KatzMichael T. Klare | Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (Ret.) | Norman Mailer | Zia MianMark Crispin Miller | Scott Ritter | Vandana Shiva | Norman Solomon | Greg SpeeterFernando Suarez del Solar | Immanuel Wallerstein | Jody Williams | Max Wolff -- © Media Education Foundation
- Directed By
- Jeremy Earp, Sut Jhally
- Genres
- Documentary, Special Interest
- In Theaters
- Sep 10, 2004 Wide
- On DVD
- Oct 5, 2004
Critic Reviews
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Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
The most outspoken and yet in some ways the calmest of the new documentaries opposing the Bush presidency.
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Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
Although the positions are by now familiar, especially for those who have seen the previously released films on the subject, there's enough solid and persuasive analysis here to give this effort a fresh urgency.
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Megan Lehmann, New York Post
There's really nothing new here ... and lacking the drama and humor of Fahrenheit 9/11, it is even more likely to be preaching to the converted.
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Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
There's nothing like facts to prosecute a case, and this documentary about the Bush administration's pre-9/11 determination to invade Iraq is nothing if not fact-based.
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Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post
Where Hijacking does its job best is in laying out the historical details of what Kwiatkowski calls the 'storyline' leading up to the Iraq invasion, a narrative fiction prepared and sold by neocons to a gullible, and scared, public.
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Cast
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Julian Bond
as Narrator
- Norman Mailer
- Michael Franti and Spearhead
- Noam Chomsky
- Jackson Katz
- Mark Crispin Miller
- Jody Williams
- Tariq Ait Ben Ali
- Scott Ritter
- Dr. Vandana Shiva
- Daniel Ellsberg
- Robert Jensen
- Benjamin Barber
- Medea Benjamin
- Kevin Danaher
- Mark Danner
- Shadia Drury
- Michael Eric Dyson
- Stan Goff
- William Hartung
- Chalmers Johnson
- Michael T. Klare
- Karen Kwiatowski
- Zia Mian
- Norman Solomon
- Greg Speeter
- Fernando Suarez del Solar
- Immanuel Wallerstein
- Max Faad Wolff
- Norman Soloman